


Silence Speaks

by Eowyn315



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Drama, F/M, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-03
Updated: 2011-08-03
Packaged: 2017-10-22 04:26:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eowyn315/pseuds/Eowyn315
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spike and Buffy can't quite shake the feelings stirred up by Willow's spell. Can they express themselves when no one can speak?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Clawofcat for betaing!

When the spell broke, it took Spike a moment to remember that he was supposed to be disgusted. In his defense, he’d been a little distracted. There’s only so much wriggling blonde Slayer a vampire can take before he starts to lose focus.

Besides, his mind was still spinning with the realization that he could hurt demons. He’d been passively bemoaning his uselessness and getting pummeled by Red’s latest magical screw-up, while Buffy, Xander, and Anya attempted to fight off the variety pack of demons that kept streaming into the crypt. But when one of the demons caught Buffy in a chokehold, lifting her up a foot off the ground so that her legs kicked ineffectually at its knees, something inside him snapped. Letting out a primal roar, Spike morphed into game face and charged at his fiancée’s assailant, with complete disregard for the impending migraine.

He was surprised when it never came. “It didn’t hurt!” he crowed, marveling at this new development. He turned to Buffy, who was picking herself up off the floor. “I can hit demons! Buffy, love, I can –”

His celebration was abruptly cut short as the demon knocked him to the ground from behind.

“That’s great, sweetie,” Buffy replied, launching into a roundhouse kick that took out their attacker. “Think you could help me out here?”

They fought beautifully, side by side, as though they’d always known they were meant for each other. Spike’s body thrummed with excitement, adrenaline flooding him with the thrill of battle. He’d thought nothing could be better than fighting her, but that was a mere shadow of what it felt like to be fighting _with_ her, in tandem, feeling their bodies in sync.

Of course, watching her fight made him hot – it always had – and he could tell by the lingering scent in the air that she was getting aroused, too. So, it was no surprise that when he went sprawling on his back, and she landed on top of him, the fighting gave way to the fiercest kiss he’d ever experienced.

So, yeah, of course he was distracted.

In fact, if it hadn’t been for Buffy leaping off him, spitting and grousing about “lips of Spike,” he might not have realized the spell was broken. Hurriedly, he scrambled away from her and acted in kind, mimicking her revulsion. Fortunately for him, everyone else was preoccupied with the sudden appearance of Willow in the crypt and hadn’t seemed to notice his lingering goodwill toward the Slayer.

After that, he was much better with the disgust, complaining about Buffy taste in his mouth and ratting her out to her friends about wanting “Wind Beneath My Wings” for the first dance. Although, really, it was a terrible song, and even if they were getting married he’d still have to insist that –

Wait. Stop. What was he thinking?

There was no “if they were getting married.” It was a spell, a horrible, revolting spell that made them do horrible, revolting things. He was just a little… disoriented, yeah. From the spell. Wasn’t thinking straight. He didn’t _really_ want to marry the Slayer, and there was no way in hell that he was in love with her.

That was just… silly.

*****

Thoroughly embarrassed by Spike’s revelation to her friends about her horrible taste in music, Buffy retreated into the kitchen with Willow on her heels.

“Did I mention about the sorry part?” Willow asked sheepishly.

“We may be into a forgetting spell later,” Buffy replied, her arms folded across her chest. She glanced out toward the living room. “I loved him,” she said with disbelief. “We were _betrothed_.”

“Well, at – at least you were getting along.”

“But we weren’t. I mean, I wasn’t even nice.” _He’s a really good kisser, though,_ she thought, and then immediately rejected the idea. “Oh, and the whole bad-boy thing?” She glanced pensively at Spike. “So over it,” she lied.

“Well, that’s good!” Willow encouraged her, happy that at least something good came out of her screw-up. “So, no more second-thoughtiness with Riley?”

Buffy’s jaw dropped. “Oh my God, Riley!”

“What?”

“He saw me looking at wedding dresses,” Buffy explained, “and I told him I was engaged! What the hell am I going to say?”

*****

It didn’t go as well as she’d hoped. He seemed pretty agreeable with the “crazy Buffy” idea, but she didn’t think he quite bought her story about pretending to be engaged in order to give him a hard time. He’d kind of walked away with that perplexed expression on his face – the one he seemed to wear a lot around her, actually. She was beginning to think maybe he wasn’t so weird for wanting to practice before having a conversation with her. Sometimes _she_ couldn’t even make sense of the words that were coming out of her mouth.

 _Here’s a plan,_ she thought. _How about I just avoid him altogether, and we’ll write this one off as a failure? Then, we can move on to scaring away the next normal guy who shows an interest in me._

With her focus set on “normal guy,” Buffy stubbornly blocked out of her mind the memories of cuddling on Spike’s lap, with his strong, comforting arms around her. She refused to analyze her feelings, to ask herself why she felt so safe in her enemy’s embrace. It was an Angel thing. Had to be. Just a case of finding solace in the familiarity of a slightly cool body wrapped around her, the stillness of an unbeating heart as she pressed against his chest, and someone to hold her tight enough that even a Slayer could feel delicate.

She hadn’t realized that Spike could be tender. She should have, obviously, because she’d seen the way he was with Drusilla. But to have it suddenly directed at her…

She missed it. Craved it. Wanted his gentleness, his caresses, his murmured endearments and soothing reassurances. She wanted to be held, comforted, protected, in a way she hadn’t been since her seventeenth birthday.

She hated it, because wanting those things made her feel weak. And she’d better get the hell over this thing with Spike, because if that birthday had taught her anything, it was that vampires couldn’t be trusted, especially not with her heart. Spike was evilbadwrong, and someday he’d be able to fight her again, and this stupid weakness from this stupid spell would only get her killed. Again.

So, that was it, she decided. Just a missing Angel thing. Nothing to do with Spike personally. And due to aforementioned evilbadwrongness, she was going to forget all about the smoky leather scent that had filled her nostrils when she’d buried her face in the hollow of his throat. She was going to forget about the firmness of his hand gripped in hers as they faced down demons together. And she was definitely going to forget all about lips of Spike – which weren’t nearly as bad as she’d made them out to be in front of her friends – kissing her, sucking her lower lip into his mouth – _oh, pouty, gonna get it_ – running his tongue over hers… God, the things he could do with his tongue…

 _No! Bad brain!_ Buffy scolded herself. _Just put Spike completely out of your mind._

Easy. No problem. She used to go whole days without thinking about Spike.

Riley, on the other hand, would be harder to avoid, if she ever wanted to go to psychology class again. For most of the hour, she kept her eyes focused on the doodles in her notebook, trying not to make eye contact with Riley as Professor Walsh lectured about communication.

Buffy snapped to attention when she heard the professor call her name, beckoning her to the front for “a demonstration.” Hesitantly, Buffy made her way to the front of the classroom and, as instructed, hopped up on the table and carefully laid down, resting on her elbows.

“Riley,” Professor Walsh directed. “Bring in Hostile Seventeen.”

Riley disappeared for a moment, and when he returned, he was pushing Spike in front of him, sans leather duster. He held Spike’s arms behind his back as though he were still a prisoner, but let him go when they reached the table. Riley backed away, and Spike leaned over Buffy, putting a hand on her waist and sliding his other arm behind her back.

“Spike, what are you doing here?” Buffy asked softly, forgetting her earlier determination and finding herself mesmerized by his earnest blue eyes.

“Don’t worry, love,” Spike reassured her, running a hand through her hair. “If I kiss you, it’ll make the sun go down.”

As the class watched, he kissed her, softer and more tenderly than the outrageous smacking that had characterized most of the kisses during their brief engagement. She felt his tongue gently press against her lips, begging entrance. Sliding her arms around his waist, she drew him closer as the kiss deepened. He tasted tangy and sweet under her tongue. Buffy pulled at Spike’s t-shirt, untucking it from his jeans, and he let out a slight hiss as her hands grazed across his bare skin. One hand slid up to brush a thumb across her nipple, and she arched into his touch.

“See?” Spike whispered against her lips, pulling away enough to gesture with his head toward the ceiling. It was only then that Buffy realized the lights in the classroom had dimmed and gone out. Spike let go of her and she sat up, noticing that the class was gone, leaving them alone in the room.

“Fortune favors the brave,” Buffy murmured, and she tilted her face up as though she might continue the kiss, but she was distracted by a faint humming sound coming from outside the classroom. “Do you hear that?”

Getting up off the table, Buffy walked toward the sound, peering through the shadows. As she listened, the humming resolved itself into words, an eerie song that sent chills down her spine:

“Can’t even shout  
Can’t even cry  
The gentlemen are coming by  
Looking in windows  
Knocking on doors  
They need to take seven  
And they might take yours  
Can’t call to Mom  
Can’t say a word  
You’re gonna die screaming  
But you won’t be heard”

Out in the darkened hallway, Buffy spotted the source of the chanting, a little blonde girl in a red dress, holding an ornate wooden box. Coming up behind her, Spike touched Buffy’s shoulder, but when she turned around, instead of Spike she saw a figure with a horrific grin on his corpse-like face.

She gasped, startling herself awake, and realized that she’d dozed off in class. It appeared that she’d slept through the entire period, since everyone was packing up their books and leaving while Professor Walsh announced something about a review session.

“Man, that was an exciting class, huh?” Willow said as she gathered up her stuff.

“Oh, yeah, well…” Buffy fumbled for words, trying to cover up the fact that she hadn’t been paying attention.

“And the last twenty minutes was a revelation! Just laid out everything we need to know for the final. I’d hate to have missed that,” Willow teased her with a knowing grin.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Just tell me I didn’t snore.”

“Very discreet, minimal drool.”

“Listen, Will, this is serious,” Buffy said, grabbing her by the arm as they headed out of the classroom. “You know that forgetting spell you were gonna do?”

“Yeah, I just need to do a little research, probably get some ingredients.”

“Can we get on that, like, ASAP?” Buffy asked, her desperation evident.

Willow gave her a sympathetic frown. “Aww, are you having post-traumatic Spike issues?”

“Majorly.” Buffy lowered her voice, pulling Willow to the side of the hallway. “I just had a dream about him.”

“Ooh, what kind of dream?” Willow asked, perking up, hoping for some juicy details.

“Parts of it seemed kind of slayery, but there was definite, um, kissage.” Buffy cringed as she said the last word.

Willow’s eyes widened. “Spike kissage?”

“Spell. Soon. _Please._ ” With that, Buffy rushed off, possibly to wash her brain out with soap – only to run headfirst into the one person she’d been trying to avoid.

“Where’re you off to in such a hurry?” Riley asked in a teasing tone. “Seemed like you were enjoying class. You looked very… peaceful.”

“Oh, I, uh…” Buffy felt her face flush with heat. “Look, I’m sorry, you know, about the whole sleeping thing. I’ll get the notes from Will.” She whipped her head around to glance at Willow, who nodded supportively. “I just… didn’t get much sleep last night, you know?”

“Yeah?” Riley fell into step with the girls as they headed out of the building. “What were you up to?”

“Oh, just patr- ah, uh, partying,” Buffy quickly corrected herself. “You know… wild and crazy freshman thing.”

“Right.” Riley looked at her with concern. “Listen, Buffy, just some friendly advice. You really ought to cut back on this kind of behavior. It’s not good for you, and it can really mess things up if you let it get in the way of your studying.”

“Yeah,” Buffy replied dryly, thinking of how far Riley’s assumptions were from the truth. “Thanks for the advice, but uh, I gotta run. Will?” She turned, expecting her best friend to follow, but she shook her head and gestured in the opposite direction.

“Wicca group,” Willow reminded her.

“Right,” Buffy said. “See you back at the room then.” With that, she beat a hasty retreat, leaving Riley to walk Willow to the campus center and talk psychology with someone who might have actually paid attention in lecture.


	2. Chapter 2

“Well, i-it could definitely be one of your prophetic dreams,” Giles told Buffy over the phone, “or it could just be the eternal mystery that is your brain.”

That was _so_ not what Buffy wanted to hear. Considering the Spike-kissing nature of the dream – which she was definitely not about to tell Giles – she was really hoping for a mystical explanation, and not just an indication of some sort of Spike-related neurosis.

Buffy hesitated for a moment, debating whether to give him the final bit of information. Deciding there was nothing wrong with the G-rated version, she took a deep breath and said, “Maybe you should ask Spike about it. He – he was in the dream. Oh, and you know the weird part? Professor Walsh called him Hostile Seventeen, you know, like the commandos did. Isn’t that strange?” She held her breath, hoping that would throw Giles off the scent of anything else that might have happened with Spike in the dream.

Agreeing that it was strange and reassuring her that he would look into it, Giles hung up. He began to question Spike about the Gentlemen, but he was quickly derailed by a revolting discussion about Spike’s eating habits.

“Sometimes I like to crumble up the Weetabix in the blood,” the vampire said, oblivious to Giles’ disgusted expression. “Give it a little texture.”

“Since the picture you just painted means I will never touch food of any kind again you'll just have to pick it up yourself.”

“Sissy.”

Ignoring him, Giles turned back to his notes, but when Xander and Anya burst in talking about orgasms, the weary Watcher gave up on the idea of research altogether. Instead, he took the opportunity to foist his unwanted houseguest upon his… other unwanted houseguests.

“Mom said you wanted me to swing by,” Xander said, explaining his presence in the Watcher’s home.

“Oh,” Giles replied. “Oh… yes, well, I meant, uh, after sunset.” He stood up and leaned against his desk. “I need you to take Spike for a few days,” he said, eliciting a triple “What?!” from Xander, Spike, and Anya, in succession.

“I’m not staying with him!” Spike insisted.

“I have a friend who’s coming to town and I’d like us to be alone,” Giles explained tactfully.

“Oh, you mean an orgasm friend?” Anya asked.

“Yes, that’s exactly the most appalling thing you could have said,” Giles muttered.

Anya gave him a “just stating the facts” look, while Xander resumed his protest, saying, “He’s not roaming around – he stays with me, he’s gonna get tied up again.” Spike just rolled his eyes at the way they talked about him like he was Giles’ pet dog.

“What about us, our romantic evening?” Anya whined.

“I’m not having these two shag while I’m tied to a chair three feet away!” Spike said. His eyes lit up with an idea. “I should stay with the Slayer. You know, Big Bad here, need to be watched.”

“I second that plan,” Xander said, raising his hand.

“Buffy lives in a dorm room,” Giles said, giving them both condescending looks. “It’s not exactly conducive to demon-sitting.”

“Yeah, plus, think of the sexual tension,” Anya pointed out. “Two girls, Spike… one room.”

A glazed look came over Spike’s face at the thought, and suddenly he was imagining himself tied to the Slayer’s bed – for the girls’ safety, of course, but the kink wasn’t lost on him – watching hungrily as Buffy slipped her clothes off, facing away from him but fully aware that he was watching her. Taunting him with her smooth, bare back as her arms stretched up above her head…

“Okay, first of all, eww!” Xander exclaimed, breaking Spike out of his fantasy. Bringing him back to his senses, more like, because “eww” was exactly the reaction he ought to be having toward the Slayer. “And second…” Xander paused, but couldn’t think of anything else. “Eww!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Giles admonished them all. “Spike will stay with Xander. End of discussion.”

 _Maybe,_ Spike thought, as his lingering erection pressed against the seam of his tight jeans, _that’s really for the best._

*****

“…bunch of wanna-blessed-bes,” Willow grumbled as she and Buffy headed back to their dorm room later that day. “You know, nowadays, every girl with a henna tattoo and a spice rack thinks she’s a sister to the dark ones.”

“I’m sorry it was a bust,” Buffy said sympathetically, as Willow followed her into the room. “I know you were looking to go farther in that department.”

“I’d just like to float something bigger than a pencil someday,” Willow said, dropping her bag and plopping down on her bed. “So, how was your day?”

Buffy groaned. “You mean after the disaster class and the train wreck conversation with Riley?” She threw herself onto her own bed with a disgusted sigh. It shouldn’t matter to her whether Riley liked her or not. She shouldn’t care what he thought of her. He was just a guy, and she’d had plenty of practice in high school not caring what other people thought.

But it did matter, and she did care. Riley was Normal Guy. Riley was her chance to prove that she wasn’t screwed up, that she could have a relationship with someone who didn’t have a sun allergy and a history of mass murder. Her chance to prove that she could love someone without pain and death, that she wasn’t attracted to the darkness and the violence. Parker had been a total failure, but she could write him off as a rebound guy. Riley… Riley was the real thing. And she’d blown it.

“Did he say anything else after I left?” she asked, sitting up on the bed to look at Willow. “He thinks I’m crazy, doesn’t he?”

“Well… yes,” Willow admitted. “But mostly he thinks you’re just irresponsible. And hey – on the bright side, now he thinks you were drunk when you told him you were engaged to Spike.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “That’s the bright side? Maybe I’m just destined to screw this up. I mean, I almost told him I was out patrolling last night!”

Willow gave her a helpless shrug. “At least your secret identity remains hidden. Oh, and I did the research on that forgetting spell. I just need a few supplies from the magic shop.”

“Thanks, Will,” Buffy replied, with a sigh of relief. She cast a rueful glance at her pillow. “Really not looking forward to sleeping tonight. I talked to Giles, but he couldn’t figure out what the dream meant.”

Willow’s eyes widened. “The Spike part?”

“No, the Gentlemen part.” Buffy shot her a look. “I’m so not telling Giles that I dreamed about kissing Spike.”

“Well, what if it’s important? What if Spike knows something?”

Buffy hesitated, uncertain. “You – you think I should talk to Spike about it?”

Willow nodded apologetically. “I think talking might be of the good.”

*****

“Buff, it’s late,” Xander protested, gesturing to his undershirt and boxers. “I’m about to go to sleep. Look, Spike’s all tied up and everything. Can’t this wait until morning?”

“Sorry, Xand. This is important. Slayer stuff,” Buffy replied, shooing him out of his own basement so that she could talk to Spike alone.

“Who are the Gentlemen?” she asked, as soon as Xander had gone upstairs and shut the door.

“Do you people even talk to each other? Your Watcher already asked me that. Now would you please untie me?” Spike grumbled, wriggling in his seat, trying to loosen the ropes that bound him to the lurid orange recliner. When he’d had his bondage fantasies earlier, they certainly hadn’t included this grotesque piece of furniture.

“No,” Buffy replied flatly, her arms folded across her chest, her body language stern. “Who are the Gentlemen?”

“How should I know?”

“You were in the dream!”

“I was – what?” Spike blinked, caught off-guard by her admission. He quickly recovered and leered at her. “You were dreamin’ about me, pet?”

“Ugh.” Buffy rolled her eyes. “I had a _slayer_ dream,” she replied, emphasizing the “official” nature of her subconscious thoughts. “About these demony guys. It – it was a rhyme. ‘Can’t even shout, can’t even cry, the Gentlemen are coming by.’ And you were there… I thought maybe you knew something.”

Spike shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Are you sure?” Buffy pressed, pacing around the cramped space. “Maybe it has something to do with those commando guys.”

“What makes you say that?”

“My psych professor called you Hostile Seventeen.” He looked at her, eyebrows arched. “Don’t… don’t ask. But that’s what they called you, right?”

She paused in front of his chair, peering down at him so plaintively that he couldn’t suppress the desire that rose up in him to help her, even if it meant reliving an experience he’d been trying all too hard to forget. “Yeah, pet. That’s what they called me.”

Buffy pushed his legs aside and perched on the recliner’s protruding footrest. “Maybe there was something you heard, something you saw when you were down there?”

Spike sighed. “These demony guys. What did they look like?”

Buffy described to him the creepy figure she had seen, as well as the little girl, and repeated everything she could remember of the rhyme. When she was finished, Spike shook his head again.

“Sorry, love. None of that sounds familiar. Would help if I could, but…”

“Why?” Buffy asked sharply, suddenly suspicious.

“Why what?”

“Why would you help us? You’ve been nothing but a pain in the ass ever since you showed up.”

“That’s not true!” he shot back, indignant. “Why, I – I helped…” He paused, trying to think of an example. “Helped Giles try to find a reversal spell, didn’t I? When he was blind. Oh, and helped you fight those demons, soon as I realized I could.”

“Spike, that was a spell!” Buffy replied. “You only did those things because you thought you were in love with me.”

“Well, yeah, but…” Spike stopped himself, biting his tongue against any admission of feelings for her that might be damning. He didn’t really want to think about why he was so eager to help her now. All she did was look at him with those wide eyes, and he just… melted.

 _Not_ the way a Big Bad should behave, even a chipped one.

“No, yeah, you’re right, Slayer,” he said, as though he’d reconsidered. “I _don’t_ wanna help you lot.”

“Fine, then I’ll just stake you right here,” Buffy said, pulling a stake out of the messenger bag she’d dropped on the floor next to the chair. “No need to keep you around if you’re useless to us, right?”

“You’re not gonna do it, love. We sang this tune already.”

“Fine,” Buffy snapped, jumping to her feet. “But the only reason you get to live is because you’re… you’re impotent, like Giles said.”

“Am I?” Spike smirked, a dark expression in his narrowed eyes. “Come on over here, pet. I’ll show you exactly how impotent I’m not.” His tongue flicked out between his teeth, his lips curling into a saucy grin.

Buffy steeled herself against the wave of arousal that accompanied his proposition. She could see the outline of his erection through his jeans, and though she tried to be disgusted by it, she kept thinking of how it had felt pressed against her thigh when she was curled up on his lap.

“Ugh!” she cried, turning the dial way up on the disgust. “Forget it, Spike. Just forget it,” she said, snatching up her bag and stomping up the steps.

“Would if I could, love,” Spike muttered. _Well,_ he thought. _Didn’t need her dorm room after all._ He strained against the ropes, trying to reach his crotch to ease some of the tension she’d worked up, but the restraints held fast, and he slouched down in his chair with a sigh.  



	3. Chapter 3

Spike climbed lazily onto her bed and knelt next to her with one finger pressed to his lips, which were curved into an impish smile. Not at all surprised by his presence in her dorm room, Buffy sat up to wrap her arms around his neck, and pulled him into a gentle kiss. She let her hands drift down his bare back, then up over his shoulders and down his arms, savoring the feel of his skin under her touch.

Part of her was aware that it was a dream, and part of her knew she should be horrified by the direction of her subconscious thoughts, but she couldn’t seem to bring herself to wake up. Something inside her wanted this, wanted to be loved by him.

The kiss broke, and she murmured something, playfully tugging at the waistband of his jeans. He responded by slipping his fingers under the thin strap of her nightgown, and tilted his head to the side, his tongue slipping out between his teeth as he mouthed the words of his teasing reply.

In that out-of-body sense that came from knowing it was a dream, Buffy recognized that there was no sound. But it didn’t seem to matter; they laughed and flirted as though they heard each other’s words. The conversation felt trivial, frothy, familiar, like they did this every day, cuddled in bed, talking about everything and nothing.

After a moment, Spike grew serious, and as she watched him, he placed a small wooden box – the same one from her other dream – down on the night table by the bed. He was explaining something to her, with an expression that said it was important, but Buffy-who-knew-it-was-a-dream couldn’t understand him.

It was like they were in one of those silent black and white movies, or like someone had pressed the mute button on the television. The picture played on, but everything was silent.

Then, the alarm went off, and Buffy woke up… and she realized it was true.

*****

Buffy was a talker; she would freely admit that. Quipping and babbling were two of her favorite pastimes. But she hadn’t realized just how comforting talking was until she couldn’t do it anymore. Everything else seemed louder in the ensuing silence – the ringing telephone (which, she realized a second too late, was useless), the slamming of doors, car horns honking, dogs barking.

As she and Willow walked down the street toward Giles’ apartment, they took in the signs of the panic that had set in all over town. Schools and businesses were closed – except the liquor store, which seemed to be doing a brisk business – and people wandered the streets in despair, unable to retain any sense of normalcy without the ability to speak. It was unsettling how much they relied on speech for communication, starkly evident as people fumbled to express themselves through hand gestures, and entrepreneurs made a fortune selling dry-erase message boards at a ridiculous mark-up for those who wanted to rely on the written word.

The Scoobies felt an enormous sense of relief in gathering together, even though Giles couldn’t explain what was going on. Physicality suddenly took on much greater meaning, and they found themselves touching and hugging each other, as though in reassurance that the rest of them hadn’t disappeared along with their voices.

Unnoticed, Spike came up behind Buffy, putting his hand on her shoulder. She could tell it was him, and she whipped around angrily. _His_ touch wasn’t comfort. She opened her mouth to cut him down with a caustic barb before remembering that she couldn’t. She was furious and frustrated with herself for welcoming him into her bed, even in a dream, and much of her irritation stemmed from her inability to shake off the longing the dream had evoked. Seeing Spike looking at her with way too much concern in his eyes only served as a reminder of her subconscious weakness, and Buffy shoved him away with a glare.

Catching Xander’s attention, she indicated Spike with a sideways glance and raised her eyebrows to question his presence at Giles’ apartment. Xander just shrugged. When she mouthed, _What is he doing here?_ he motioned for Buffy’s message board and wrote, “Couldn’t leave him alone with my parents.” Buffy let out a reluctant sigh and rolled her eyes in Spike’s direction.

Despite the comfort of the group, Buffy was actually relieved to get out and patrol, if only to get away from Spike and his overly tender looks. She refused to entertain the idea that he’d kept some of his feelings for her from the spell. And she refused to acknowledge the thought that she was running away from him to avoid dealing with any of her own emotions.

Besides, she needed to be out patrolling, in case the grinning corpse demons from her dream made an appearance. It couldn’t be a coincidence. “Can’t even shout, can’t even cry” – it _had_ to be the Gentlemen. But what did they want?

“They need to take seven, and they might take yours.” Seven of what? It couldn’t be good, whatever it was. “You’re gonna die screaming” was terrifying enough, even without the notion that no one would hear.

Buffy was startled to run into Riley breaking up a fight in the street. Catching sight of one of the combatants picking up a pipe to attack him, Buffy casually snapped the man’s wrist, and the cracking noise seemed to echo in the silence. Riley turned to see her approaching, and he started to lean in to hug her before he reconsidered and straightened up, giving her a pat on the shoulder instead.

 _You okay?_ he mouthed. She nodded, inquiring the same of him with her expression. She had to admit, the silent thing wasn’t all bad – at least now he couldn’t ask her any difficult, awkward questions about being engaged and/or crazy that might require her to lie.

 _What are you doing out here?_ Riley asked her silently, ruining her one silver lining in the situation. Buffy made a sheepish face, unable to come up with an explanation on the spot, and incapable of communicating it to him even if she could think of something.

Riley started to gesture with his arms, but Buffy just shook her head in confusion. She couldn’t interpret his movements, and he just seemed to get more frustrated when she didn’t understand. Suddenly, they both heard a loud crash, and Riley, almost with a sense of relief, gestured that he had to go. Buffy nodded and headed off in the opposite direction, puzzling over the encounter. She and Riley had been having trouble communicating the entire time they’d known each other, so she supposed it was reasonable that not being able to talk wouldn’t really improve the situation any. She wondered what he was doing out here, all things considered, but she couldn’t spend much time worrying about him when there were more important things to think about.

Like, for instance, the asylum escapee that was headed toward her, the untied arms of its straitjacket swinging at its sides.

*****

Spike paced around the basement, antsy and tired of being cooped up. He knew he could fight demons now; he should be out there helping Buffy. But Xander had made it abundantly clear through body language that Spike would not be leaving the house under any circumstances – and since Spike couldn’t actually fight the boy when he blocked the doorway, he had to resign himself to waiting.

Standing on tiptoe, he peered out the basement window, but all he could see was grass. Then, suddenly, he caught a glimpse of something – two somethings – going past with an uneven, loping stride.

Spike banged on the wall to get Xander’s attention, but the boy just gave him an annoyed stare before shaking his head and turning away again. Not to be ignored, Spike grabbed Xander and pulled him over to the window as roughly as the chip would allow, and gestured for Xander to look. He did, and his eyes widened when he saw two sets of feet hovering six inches off the ground as they floated past the window.

Spike and Xander exchanged a glance, and then simultaneously made a mad dash up the stairs to find a window with a better view. Xander, in the lead, rounded the corner into the living room, knocking over a lamp and nearly taking out the end table it was sitting on. Behind him, Spike managed a diving catch, juggling the lamp for a moment before getting a firm grasp on it.

 _Nice save,_ Xander mouthed, but the vampire wasn’t looking at him.

The lamp slipped out of Spike’s hands, shattering loudly on the floor as he stared wide-eyed at the big picture window in the living room. Xander spun around, and immediately jumped backward with a gasp at the face peering in at them. The monster gave them a hideous Cheshire grin and a little wave before he turned and glided away from the house.

Xander and Spike flew to the window, watching the mysterious figures cross Xander’s front lawn and head down the street. Spike recognized the taller, floating ones as the demon Buffy had described in her dream. They had to be the Gentlemen, and the hunched-over ones in the straitjackets seemed to be their lackeys.

He looked at Xander again, as the two of them came to the same realization. _Buffy,_ Spike mouthed.

Xander replied, _Anya!_ He pointed toward the door, his panic evident on his face. _Go!_

Spike nodded, and the two of them ran outside. Xander headed for his car, while Spike set off on foot after Buffy. With a squeal of tires, Xander peeled out of the driveway, driving at breakneck speed all the way to Anya’s apartment. He pounded steadily on the door, only pausing when it swung open and Anya appeared in the doorway, puzzled at the late-night visitor. Xander’s panicked expression melted into relief as he grabbed Anya in a crushing embrace.

After a moment, Anya pulled away, giving him a curious look as she let him into the apartment and closed the door behind him. Xander gestured wildly, screwing his face up into a maniacal grin in impersonation of the Gentlemen. When Anya didn’t seem to get it, he raised his arms over his head with his fingers shaped into claws, and made an “arrgh” face to indicate a demon.

Anya’s eyes lit up with understanding, and then she smiled as she realized that Xander had come rushing over to make sure she was all right. She “awwed” silently, before giving him an enthusiastic kiss. They gazed into each other’s eyes for a moment, Xander’s fingers caressing her jaw, as they both realized how much Anya meant to him.

With a naughty smile, Anya made a circle with her thumb and index finger, inserting her other index finger into the hole, and the two of them scampered off to the bedroom.

*****

Buffy fought off the straitjacketed creature, cursing her decision not to bring weapons. _Yeah, don’t want to be conspicuous,_ she thought, keeping up a running commentary in her head, since she couldn’t talk out loud. _Don’t want to frighten the townies. Like this isn’t conspicuous!_

She kicked the Gentlemen’s henchman to the ground, only to have a second one jump on her from behind. She jerked her shoulders, flinging it off her back so that it landed on the grass next to its buddy. Buffy turned to run, but she saw two Gentlemen gliding down the street toward her. Spinning back to the lackeys, she saw them get to their feet and charge at her again. She hit them before they could hit her, but their straitjackets seemed to absorb most of her blows. Their arms flung wildly, as though they had little control over their limbs, but when they connected with her head, there was enough power behind it to knock her backwards. Somehow, one of them managed to catch hold of her from behind, while the other attacked from the front.

Then, the one in front went flying, and Spike was standing before her. Buffy broke free from her restraints and spun into a kick, hitting her attacker in the chest. A second kick knocked it to the ground, and she pinned it with one knee on its back and snapped its neck.

Spike grappled with the second minion before managing to snap its neck as well, and then rushed over to Buffy. He grasped her by the shoulders and asked silently, _Are you all right?_

She nodded, glancing around to make sure that there were no other attackers nearby. When her gaze returned to Spike’s face, she was startled by the intensity of the emotion in his eyes. Before she knew what was happening, he was kissing her, full on, passionate, and with a desperation that betrayed how much he had feared for her safety.

It was wrong; he could count a million ways in which kissing the Slayer was absolutely the wrong thing to do, but at that moment, nothing else felt more right. The feelings hit him like a freight train, adrenaline pounding through his body, tearing down the walls, flooding him with everything he’d been holding back since the spell. His heart was exposed, as raw and vulnerable as it had ever been. He realized in one awful flash of comprehension that he was no less gripped with desire for her than he’d been during their false engagement. Love’s bitch had found himself a new mistress.

Overwhelmed, Buffy gave in at first, letting herself slip back into the fantasies she’d been trying so hard to suppress since the spell had broken. Her arms came around his neck, and she didn’t resist when he backed her up against a tree, pressing his lean body against hers. But when she broke away, gasping for breath, she had a horrified expression on her face, and she shoved him backwards. She stared at Spike for a moment, one hand clapped over her mouth, her eyes wide with shock.

Spike’s lips parted, as though he wanted to explain himself, but of course he was unable to speak. It didn’t matter; his face told her everything she needed to know. His features, carved in moonlight, spoke volumes in the tension of his jaw, the curve of his mouth, the crease of his brow. His eyes shone with the same affection he’d had when they were engaged, only deeper, more pure, and more frightening now, because this time it was real, and not the result of a spell. When she didn’t respond, his brow began to twitch into an uncertain furrow, his head tilted as though he could find what he was seeking if he just looked at her from the right angle. His eyes pleaded with her; he knew it was wrong, but he begged her to accept it anyway, to take the risk and acknowledge what he himself had just been forced to admit.

Abruptly, she turned and high-tailed it away from him at full slayer speed, so she wouldn’t have to see his perfect, porcelain face shatter in the wake of her rejection.  



	4. Chapter 4

The cheap, college-issue bed frame creaked beneath them, the only audible evidence of their lovemaking. Soundless cries of passion died in their throats, the joining of their bodies muted. Buffy squeezed her eyes shut, digging her nails into Spike’s shoulders and her heels into his back. His chest vibrated against hers with silent moans, and she felt the tremors run through her and coalesce at her center.

Her breathing grew faster, more erratic, sawing through the silence with ragged gasps. A trickle of sweat slid down between her breasts, and Spike lowered his head to catch it with his tongue. His mouth closed on her nipple, rolling the pebbled flesh between his teeth, causing her to inhale sharply.

With the loss of their voices, and the unnatural quiet it created, Buffy felt a heightened awareness of everything else. The pungent smell of leather and sex that surrounded her, the chafing of her cheap cotton sheets against her back, the way Spike’s lips parted ever so slightly with pleasure, his tongue barely visible as it skated across his lower teeth. Every touch felt like it was reaching her most sensitive nerve endings, and whenever his pelvic bone struck her clit, it caused an explosion of sensation within her.

Spike quickened his pace, thrusting harder and deeper, the rhythmic slap of flesh on flesh like a primal drumbeat. Buffy’s inner walls trembled around him, wringing his cock with every stroke. She couldn’t help but cry out when she came, suddenly and without warning, though it amounted to nothing but expelled air.

Spike’s orgasm followed moments after, gasping his own release with his forehead pressed to hers. As he collapsed on top of her, she pulled his head down to rest pillowed against her shoulder.

It was then that she saw the Gentleman hovering just beyond Spike’s exhausted form, applauding politely at their performance. Gaping at the figure in terror, she let out a silent scream…

…and shot up out of bed to find herself alone, Willow’s still-sleeping form in the next bed the only other person in the room. Sweaty and trembling, Buffy lay back down, but it was a long time before she fell asleep again.

*****

The next day, the gang gathered in Buffy and Willow’s psychology classroom, and Giles began to set up the overhead projector for his presentation. Buffy and Willow took seats in the front row, and Anya, bag of popcorn in hand, filed in behind them. Spike made a move to sit near Buffy, but her deadly warning glare forced him to reconsider, and he took a place next to Anya in the second row.

Xander closed the blinds and then perched on the lecture hall steps, as Giles played the _Danse Macabre_ on his tape player and began his presentation. As the Watcher went through the overheads, telling the story of the fairy tale monsters who came to steal hearts and could not be killed, Spike took the opportunity to study Buffy from behind, wondering if she was thinking at all about their kiss from last night. For his own part, he couldn’t get it out of his mind. He hadn’t planned to kiss her, but there’d been so many emotions bubbling up inside him, begging for expression, and it just… happened. He wanted to write it off as just a stupid impulse, nothing to be concerned about, but he knew it wasn’t. Things hadn’t been right since the witch did her bloody spell.

He was starting to understand what Dru had meant when she’d said the Slayer was floating all around him, when she’d left him in South America. He felt it now, felt her seeping into his skin, flowing through his veins. Part of him was repulsed, appalled that he could let his Slayer obsession be perverted into this… this mockery of everything a vampire should be. He should want to kill her, not kiss her.

But somehow, it felt inevitable. The way they’d danced, the way his body had ached with the need to fight her. Even when he was hunting her, she had consumed him in a way her predecessors never had. It only seemed fitting, then, that his lust for her blood should lead to a deeper, all-encompassing desire for her. He craved her, yearned for the intimacy of the engagement spell, longed for her to return the feelings he had laid bare with his kiss.

When Giles displayed a particularly gruesome drawing of the Gentlemen harvesting hearts, Buffy and Willow squirmed in their seats, exchanging uncomfortable looks. Behind them, Anya and Spike glanced at each other and shrugged, unimpressed. Spike reached over to steal some of Anya’s popcorn, only to have his hand slapped away by an ex-demon unwilling to share.

As Giles put up the last transparency, which read, “Buffy will patrol tonight,” Spike raised his hand, snapping his fingers. Buffy was making a fuss over the size of her hips in Giles’ drawing, but he managed to get their attention.

Spike pointed to himself, then started to mimic Buffy’s staking gesture, but quickly stopped when he remembered what it looked like. Waving his hands to show that he was starting over, he pointed at Buffy, then himself again, then threw a few mock punches.

Buffy stared at him. _You wanna fight?_ she challenged him, though she had to admit to a fair measure of relief at the idea. Everything had been so much simpler when he was just trying to kill her. That was comforting, familiar. This new Spike, who saved her life and kissed her and haunted her dreams – this Spike terrified her.

Spike shook his head and, with exasperation, pointed to the overhead, then waved his finger back and forth to indicate himself and Buffy.

Buffy, hoping to avoid a repeat of the previous night at all costs, was appalled at the idea. She looked to Giles to shoot down Spike’s suggestion, but to her consternation, he was nodding vigorously. She gave him her best “Are you crazy?” face, and he gestured for a message board.

“He’s strong,” Giles wrote, “and he can fight demons.”

 _He can help you,_ he mouthed.

Buffy rolled her eyes before turning around to shoot a glare at Spike. _Don’t think you’ve earned my trust,_ she said to herself, wondering if she thought it hard enough, she could make Spike hear it. One life-saving and a fake engagement didn’t even begin to make up for the multiple times he’d tried to kill her and her friends, no matter how good in bed her subconscious seemed to think he was. She wasn’t going down that road. Not again.

*****

At first, Tara didn’t mind the silence. She was never good at expressing herself out loud anyway. She always clammed up, had to force the words out in a stuttering, stumbling jumble. Usually, by the time she finished her sentence, they were laughing at her, so she ended up trailing off with a shy, embarrassed shake of her head. The thoughts were always there, bouncing around in her brain, but they never wanted to come out. They never sounded as good or as clever as they did in her head, so they hid, took refuge in the safety of her mind, where no one mocked or ridiculed them.

So, it was okay, at first, the not talking. But it made everyone else uncomfortable, and the longer it went on, the more everyone seemed on edge, and the more Tara realized that something had to be done about it. She had a few ideas, a whole chapter on spells of speech and silence in one of her magic books, but nothing she would be able to pull off on her own. The helplessness and the loneliness hit her with an acute sorrow; she hadn’t missed her mother this much since right after she had died. No one else had ever understood her, and even the promised liberalism of college hadn’t offered her a place to fit in. She’d hoped the Wicca group on campus would introduce her to others with an interest in magic, but there was no one… no one she could possibly count on to do something real.

 _“Well, there's the wacky notion of spells…”_

Willow. The new girl, the one who’d stood out from the others. The one who’d spoken up and managed to say what Tara had been wanting to say all semester. The one girl out of all of them that might care about more than bake sales and newsletters.

She had power. Tara could sense it; her whole body quivered with it. But she didn’t know how to approach her, to ask her about magic. She was terrified to face the rejection, to open herself up to one more person laughing in her face.

But someone had come into their dorm last night, had murdered a fellow student in his bed. There was no room for timidity, no time for hesitation. A glance out the window told Tara that nightfall was approaching, and she didn’t think she could live with herself if she let another night go by without trying to do something, without finding a way to bring their voices back and stop the killing.

Gathering up some books and notepads, and the post-it with Willow Rosenberg’s address on it, Tara hurried out the door.

*****

They walked in silence, naturally, but it was a deeper, more absolute silence than just the forced absence of speech. Buffy kept her gaze directed straight in front of her, casting only occasional sideways glances at Spike. She refused to meet his eyes, afraid of what she would find, and resisted all of his attempts to communicate with her. She shut him out completely, would not let him see what she was feeling. She was afraid of what her own eyes would reveal, afraid to give in to the emotions that gripped her.

Focus on the bad guys. That, she could do. After an hour or so of wandering around town and finding nothing to fight, Buffy finally risked a glance at Spike. _I think we should split up,_ she mouthed, gesturing in opposite directions to emphasize her point.

Spike looked resistant at first, but nodded reluctantly when confronted with Buffy’s resolve face. They started to turn away from each other, but Spike grabbed her by the arm, spinning her back around. He met her eyes with a look that said, “Be careful,” and possibly “I love you,” but she didn’t want to think about that. Shaking her head, she slung her crossbow over her shoulder and headed off toward the center of town. After a moment, Spike started following Main Street up the other way, but a movement out of the corner of his eye made him pause.

Looking up, Spike saw several long shadows gliding across the upper windows of the clock tower in the town square, and headed off to investigate. He eased the door open slowly, so as not to startle whatever might be lurking inside. But whatever was there, it was waiting for him, and it pounced as soon as he stepped through the door. Spike rolled across the floor, limbs tangled with the straitjacketed lackey that had jumped him. He managed to escape from its grasp and kicked it across the room before kipping to his feet. He brought his elbow down hard on its back, and then snapped its neck.

A second minion came at him from behind, and he threw himself backward against the wall, letting his attacker absorb the brunt of the force. He elbowed it in the throat and then flipped it over his shoulder and onto the ground. As he straightened, he saw two more loping toward him, and he shook on his game face with a growl.

*****

Meanwhile, Buffy was grappling with her own minion out on the street. She managed to free herself from the chokehold and spun around, delivering a swift right hook that set her attacker off-balance. She took a step back, setting herself up for a roundhouse kick to its ugly bandaged head, only to see its body shudder and jerk with the force of an electric charge before dropping to the ground. Slinging her crossbow off her shoulder, she spun around, taking aim in one fluid motion, and came face to face – or crossbow to military-grade stun gun – with Riley Finn.

They lowered their weapons simultaneously, Riley gaping at her in shock. Buffy’s panicked expression at her secret identity being discovered slowly dissipated as she took in his military fatigues, the advanced weaponry, the high-tech gadgets.

 _“Professor Walsh called him Hostile Seventeen, you know, like the commandos did. Isn’t that strange?”_

Everything clicked into place. Riley… Professor Walsh… Hostile Seventeen. Her dream _had_ been trying to tell her something else. She would bet anything that her psychology professor was involved in this whole covert ops business, too.

Buffy rolled her eyes and thought, _Figures._ The one guy who'd shown an interest in her, and he turned out to be one of the secret commandos.

Then, an unexpected wave of relief went through her. Riley wasn't normal after all. She knew this should be disheartening, realizing that her streak of attracting mysterious, dangerous men was still unbroken, but all she felt was relieved that she wouldn’t have to try to impress him anymore. It all seemed so silly, her obsession with “normal.” Unable to contain her mirth, she started to laugh silently, marveling at how fixated she'd been on making a good impression, getting Riley to like her… and now, it turned out he was one of them, the mysterious commandos that might possibly be her enemy.

Riley stared at her, puzzled by her reaction. He looked down at himself, then back up at her. Breaking into a smile as though he knew what she was thinking, he nodded and mouthed, _Costume._

Buffy briefly closed her eyes and gave him a patronizing shake of her head. _Commando,_ she mouthed back. _Demons._ She tapped on her temple with one finger, then gripped her head with both hands and made a face like she was in pain. _Chip,_ she said.

His mouth dropped open, and he glanced down at his gun reluctantly, as though he was contemplating whether or not to taser her. Buffy just raised her eyebrows, daring him to even try.

She didn’t really want to hurt him, but she still had to figure out how to stop the Gentlemen, and she couldn’t risk Riley following her. Before he knew what hit him, she’d sucker-punched him in the face, knocking him unconscious before she broke out into a run.  



	5. Chapter 5

Spike roared with exhilaration, and even the lack of audible sound wasn’t enough to dampen his spirits. It had been far too long since he’d been in a decent brawl… well, okay, it had only been about a week since they’d fought off the demons in the crypt, but he’d had a bit of a dry spell before that.

He managed to shake off his attacker and shove it backwards into a row of barrels. Backhanding it across the face, he followed through with a kick to the gut that sent the straitjacketed crony tumbling among the barrels.

Just then, another minion burst through the wall of the clock tower, wood splintering in its wake, with Buffy hot on its heels. Spike paused briefly, slipping out of game face as he caught Buffy’s eyes, and she nodded in acknowledgement. They resumed their battle, consistently fighting off multiple attackers as the creepy henchmen seemed to multiply.

Taking aim with her crossbow, Buffy quickly felled two of the lackeys before the weapon was knocked out of her hands. She delivered a knee to the groin, then kicked the minion to the ground.

Spike ducked a punch, recovering to retaliate with a roundhouse kick that took out his opponent. Another grabbed him from behind, but he shook it off as he ran straight toward the wall. Running into a wall flip, he launched himself backwards to land on the other side of the lackey. Taking it by surprise with the maneuver, he easily snapped its neck.

Buffy caught the move out of the corner of her eye. _Show off,_ she thought, suppressing a smile. Well, two could play at that game. She jumped up, catching hold of a rope, and swung across the room to deliver a two-footed kick to the chest of one of the minions. Propelling herself back in the opposite direction, she brought her legs up and locked them around the neck of a second. She twisted her hips and let go of the rope, dropping to a crouch next to the dead body of her opponent.

Spike gave her an approving smirk, catching on to her little competition. Before he could come up with something as impressive as her Tarzan act, though, Buffy noticed one of them fleeing up a flight of stairs. She captured his gaze and raised her eyebrows, signaling her change in tactic. Spike nodded, holding his own as he took out two lackeys that attacked him simultaneously, sweeping the legs out from under one of them and hitting the other with an elbow to the throat.

Leaving Spike to deal with the minions below, Buffy dashed up the steps to the second floor, where she spotted a long table with seven jars, five of which contained human hearts. _Gross,_ she thought, _but promising._ Before she could react, though, Buffy was grabbed from behind by three minions, and a Gentleman floated toward her, brandishing a scalpel.

*****

Willow winced in pain as she ran down the stairs, hanging onto the girl she’d run into in the hallway. The other girl, whom she recognized from Wicca group, helped to support her on her sprained ankle. The straitjacketed lackeys were close behind, so Willow pulled the girl into the closest open doorway – the laundry room – slamming the door and locking it behind them.

The banging coming from the other side told them it wouldn’t hold for long, but even their combined strength couldn’t brace the door, and everything in the room was too heavy to be moved. After a futile attempt with the soda machine, Willow dropped to the floor and leaned against a washing machine, frustrated and in pain.

She hadn’t tried doing magic since she’d screwed up the will be done spell, but it looked like she didn’t have a choice. Concentrating as hard as she could, she stared at the soda machine, willing it to move. It shuddered a little, but didn’t budge. Willow slumped back, defeated.

Then, she felt the other girl take her hand, slipping her fingers gently through her own. Her eyes widening with understanding, Willow realized that, with this simple gesture, the shy, awkward girl had communicated to her the very thing she’d stumbled and stuttered over during Wicca group.

This girl was a witch.

Tara gave the redhead a tiny, shy smile, nodding slowly as she read the comprehension on Willow’s face. As one, their heads snapped toward the soda machine, and it whipped across the room, spinning into place to barricade the door.

Relief flooded through them as they heard the banging cease. Tara looked at Willow, surprised by both her own boldness and the other girl’s power. She felt a rush from the magic, more energy than she was used to channeling, but she also felt a kinship, connection, and a sense that this girl might be exactly what she had been longing for.

*****

As Buffy struggled, the lackeys holding her suddenly stumbled forward, when Spike kicked one of them in the back. It was enough for Buffy to break free from their grasp and knock the scalpel out of the Gentleman’s hand with a high kick.

Spike grabbed one of the minions, banging its head into the bell tower hard enough to make the bell gong. The sound echoed through the room, heard above the constant smack of connecting blows.

Buffy managed to get in a couple of quick punches against the henchman she was fighting, when one of the Gentlemen stabbed her in the back with the scalpel. The sickening sound of the blade slicing through flesh was followed by the metallic scent of blood tainting the air. Spike turned, alarmed, but he was too far away to help her.

 _Okay,_ Buffy thought angrily. _That hurt._

Grinning, the Gentleman backed out of her reach as one of the lackeys threw Buffy against a giant spool of rope and held her around the shoulders and neck. Despite her efforts to fight back, she was weakened by her injury and unable to break free. She happened to glance over at the table, and next to the jars of hearts, she spotted the ornate box from her dreams, the one the singing little girl had been holding and that Spike had been trying to tell her about. She hadn’t been able to hear him speaking in the dream, but now she understood what he’d been trying to say.

Her eyes widened with recognition as she frantically tried to think how to communicate her discovery to Spike. Still held fast, Buffy smacked her hands on the rope spool to get his attention and gestured to the box on the table. Nodding, Spike ran to the table and picked up a vial of liquid, slamming it back down so that it shattered.

Spike looked eagerly to Buffy for her approval, but she rolled her eyes and shook her head. She tried to mime a box opening and closing with her hands, but Spike turned away and grabbed a broken piece of a beam, using it to gleefully smash everything on the table – jars, bottles, crystals, and the little wooden box.

When he was finished, he glanced up again, proud of his handiwork. Buffy just gave him an exasperated look before her attacker tossed her to the ground where she tumbled into a crouch. Streams of mist came flowing out of the ruins of the box, restoring their voices, and Buffy let out a scream.

As she did, the Gentlemen looked at each other with wide-eyed, fearful expressions, and then one by one, their heads began to explode, spraying greenish-yellow gunk everywhere.

When the last body had hit the floor, Buffy looked across the room, where Spike was gazing back at her. Slowly, hesitantly, she approached him, now that she was able to speak, uncertain of what to say.

Just as before, his eyes told her everything, and she ran the last few paces until she slammed into him, meeting him in another passionate kiss.

*****

The next day, Buffy found herself over at Xander’s house. He was out for the day, but he wasn’t the one she wanted to see, anyway. She made her way cautiously down the basement steps, and Spike glanced up as she came into view.

“Hi,” she said, pausing at the foot of the stairs and shoving her hands in her pockets.

“Hi,” he replied, straightening up from where he was crouched, going through Xander’s video collection.

Buffy moved toward the sofa bed, perching hesitantly on the edge. “I guess we need to talk.”

Spike took a seat in the unfortunate orange recliner that he was, disturbingly, starting to think of as his. “I guess we do.”

Neither of them spoke for a long moment, sitting with their hands clasped in their laps, their gazes averted.

“I know who the commandos are,” Buffy blurted out finally.

Spike’s head snapped up. That was the last thing he’d expected her to say.

“One of them, anyway, probably two,” she went on. “But it – it’s a place to start, right?”

Spike raised his eyebrows. Was she actually offering him information that would help him?

“We can find out what these commando guys are up to,” Buffy clarified. “Whether I should be fighting them or helping them.”

Spike’s mouth curved into a humorless, knowing smile. “Right. Silly me. For a minute there, I thought you might actually help me get this chip outta my head.”

“I can’t do that, Spike. You know I can’t.” _I don’t want to have to kill you,_ she added silently, wondering when exactly that had become the case. He looked away from her without responding.

“Is it so bad?” she asked timidly. “Not hurting humans? I mean, it’s just… if you start killing again, I’d have to…”

“Right. Yeah.” Spike snorted, slouching back in the chair, his posture churlish and sullen. “Wouldn’t expect anything to change, just ’cause we kissed, right?”

She felt her chest clench at the bitterness in his voice, but it didn’t stem her righteous anger. “You think I’d let you _kill_ people? Spike, I’m the Slayer!”

“And I’m a _vampire,_ pet, or had you forgotten? Think I’m just an animal you can housebreak, is that it? Strap a muzzle on me? I helped you, Buffy, saved your bloody life. Nothing in it for me, except…”

“Except what?” she snapped.

“’Cept not wanting to see you dead,” he said, in a voice thick with emotion that reminded her of the depth of the feelings she’d seen reflected in his eyes.

Taking a deep breath, Buffy said, “Spike, when I… kissed you… I didn’t…” She cringed at the tone of her “let him down easy” voice. She was attracted to him, of course, but she couldn’t let that get in the way of her common sense. “Um, what I mean is…”

He let out a disgusted sigh. “Look, if you came here to tell me it didn’t mean anything, and it’ll never happen again, just get it out and go home.”

“Spike…”

“I mean it, Slayer,” he cut in, getting up out of the chair and standing with his back to her. “Not in the mood to get yanked around, so just –”

Suddenly, she was behind him, and she spun him around, her mouth on his before he knew what hit him. He let the kiss go on for a bit, savoring the taste of her, the feel of her body against his, just in case it was the last time. After a moment, he pulled away and asked, “So, what’s this, then?”

“I don’t know,” Buffy admitted, letting go of him. So much for common sense. The problem was, it was more than physical. It was more than just passionate kisses and steamy sex dreams. It was the memory of curling up in his lap, of feeling safe and loved in his arms. She’d seen another side of him, and it was new and surprising, and she couldn’t convince herself any longer that it was solely because of the spell.

“I don’t know what this means,” she said, “but I’m pretty sure I hate it.”

“Then stop kissing me!” he retorted indignantly.

“You kissed me first!”

Spike rolled his eyes. “What are you, five?” She turned away from him with an irritated expression, but this time it was he who pulled her back around. “You feel it, though, right?” he asked her. “Feel… whatever this is, between us?”

“Yeah,” she said, the word coming out as a sigh. “It’s not supposed to be like this. I’m not supposed to fall for another vampire.” Hadn’t she already learned the hard way that getting involved with a vampire would lead to nothing but pain? And this one didn’t even have a soul. They had danced, they had brawled, they had spent years fighting a war from opposing sides, and yet he made her feel whole, managed to touch something inside her that had lain wrecked and ruined since Angel had left.

“Oh, and being in love with the Slayer’s a perfectly normal thing, yeah? Know it’s not right, but it’s –”

“What did you say?” She was staring at him, her eyes wide with disbelief.

“I, uh…”

“You’re in love with me?”

Spike closed his eyes, as though she might have disappeared when he opened them again. Nope. Still there. “Buffy, I…”

“You’re in _love_ with me.”

“Well… yeah.” He looked down at his bare feet. “Have been since that spell of Red’s. Guess it just never went away.”

Buffy furrowed her brow. “Since the spell? But you acted like…”

“So did you,” he pointed out.

“I was legitimately disgusted!”

“Oh, yeah?” Spike smirked. “Tell me again how you dreamt about me,” he teased her, having no idea the direction her dreams had taken since their first conversation about the Gentlemen.

Buffy felt her cheeks burning at the unintentional suggestion, and she was sure her face had turned bright red with embarrassment. Worse still was the bolt of desire that shot through her at the memory of her most recent dream. She had to fight to suppress the urge to throw him down on the sofa bed and reenact it right there, but Spike took care of that by stepping close to her and pulling her into an embrace.

“Pretty clear neither one of us is disgusted now, pet,” he murmured in her ear, his voice low and gravelly. Before she could respond, his lips had found hers again, his tongue teasing gently at the corner of her mouth. Against her will, her lips parted to welcome him and her hands began skating over his muscular back, once again drowning in the sensation of his kisses.

When he finally released her, breathless, Buffy asked tentatively, “What about the whole mortal enemies thing?”

“Look, chip’s not going anywhere for the time being, right? And when the time comes… we’ll see.”

“No. No ‘we’ll see.’” Buffy broke away from him, growing visibly upset. “I lost Angel because he turned evil. I loved him, and it nearly killed me when he…” She shook her head. “I can’t let myself get attached to you, knowing that someday things could change.”

“Seems like we’re already attached, love,” Spike pointed out. “Thing is, Buffy, when we were under that spell, when you loved me… I was content. Didn’t miss killing. Didn’t feel like less of a man ’cause I was defanged…”

“As long as you could fight demons,” she interrupted, remembering how he’d gone from pouty to jubilant the moment he’d made his discovery.

“As long as I could fight demons,” Spike conceded with a half-smile. “Point is, you could make me feel like that again.”

Buffy gave him a dismayed, anxious expression, overwhelmed by the weight of the burden he’d just placed on her. “What if I can’t?” she asked, her voice a breathy whisper. “What if it was the spell? What if… what if I’m not enough?”

It was the question she’d been asking herself for months, the insecurity that had eaten away at her confidence in the wake of her romantic failures. She hadn’t been enough to make Angel stay, and she hadn’t been enough to keep Parker interested. How could she ever let her hopes rest on being able to make Spike want to be good?

“You already are.”

Her head snapped up at the whispered words, her disbelieving eyes locking with his tender gaze. She didn’t even know if it was possible, if a vampire could really change without a soul, but she wanted to believe it, needed to believe it, because Spike made her feel like she was worth it. “It’s going to be hard,” she warned him. “Fighting against your demon.”

“Always did like a challenge,” he replied, taking a step toward her.

“My friends aren’t going to like you.”

“I’m charming. I’ll win ’em over.” He took another step closer.

“My mother will never approve.”

“Your mum loves me,” Spike responded, his final step bringing him to her as he bent down and kissed the tip of her nose. “Said she’d have a nice cuppa for me anytime I wanted to talk.” He raised his eyebrows at her. “And that was before the chip.”

Buffy’s eyes widened. “You are _so_ not allowed to hang out with my mother.”

“That so, pet?” Spike smirked and, with a twinkle in his eye, he grabbed her around the waist and tackled her onto the orange recliner. “You gonna stop me?”

“I might have to,” Buffy replied, running her hands over his chest as he braced himself on the chair arms above her. “Can’t have the Big Bad spilling my secrets to the parental unit.”

“Oh, Mrs. Summers,” Spike said, adopting a high-pitched voice. “You wouldn’t _believe_ the evil, naughty things I’ve been up to with your only daughter. Why, I didn’t even know you could _do_ that with a plunger!”

Buffy swatted at him, letting out an indignant squeal. “I think I liked you better when you couldn’t talk.”

“Just have to shut me up, then,” he retorted, lowering his head to kiss her again. Dropping down and shifting his weight, he managed to wrestle the squirming Slayer onto his lap, cuddling her close like he had when they were engaged. She caressed his cheeks, tracing the lines of his sharp cheekbones, then curving down along his jaw.

“So, you really all right with this?” Spike asked her seriously. “You willin’ to take a chance with me, Slayer?”

“Fortune favors the brave,” Buffy murmured. “Just… promise me you’ll never give me a reason to kill you.”

He studied her, took in her grave expression. As he felt the warmth of her cradled in his arms, all he knew was that he wanted more of this, and if that was what he had to give up… “I promise.”


End file.
